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A the height of her power Assyria dominated the core areas of all the great ancient Near Eastern civilizations, from Egypt to Iran, from Babylonia to Anatolia. 4 e territories under her direct, as well as indirect, rule represented a huge land mass, which surpassed all former empires by a factor of at least four. We should ask ourselves what led to this unprecedented expansion. Obviously it cannot be attributed to an intrinsic advantage on the Assyrian side. 4 e Assyrian heartland was of moderate size only, its population neither more numerous nor signifi cantly more productive than its enemies. Assyria was not fanaticized by new ideas or ideologies either, and every advance in military technol-ogy was immediately shared by all Near Eastern contemporaries. 4 e Assyrian kings were no charismatic leaders and their wars did not produce a military genius—there was no Assyrian Alexander, Genghis Khan, or Bonaparte whatsoever. According to the Assyrians’ own offi cial point of view, the help of their gods was the main reason for their success, but there was no shortage of supportive gods among their enemies either.

In fact, the rise of Assyria can be explained by the peculiar historical setting of the later th century and the developments leading to it. Assyria had already been a great power centuries before, but in the th–th-century political context Assyria had been just one Near Eastern empire among others and by no means the most powerful one. 4 e universal decline of the th century and the political chaos of the th deprived the empires of their power bases and some even disappeared completely. Assyria did not emerge unscathed from the crisis years either but at least her core area and her institu-tions had survived more or less intact. Even in her weakened condition Assyria now towered like a giant over a multitude of dwarfs. 4 e revival of Assyria began during the last decades of the th century. Her armed forces developed slowly but steadily and they grew in size faster than the armies of the newly emerging rival powers. 4 e Assyrian kings used their armies cautiously and successfully, giving their troops a lead in num-bers, experience, and competence, advantages which they maintained for no less than three centuries.

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We have almost no information on the Assyrian army of the th century. For the th the situation is much improved by inscriptions and pictorial evidence from the reigns of Assurnasirpal II (r. – ) as well as Shalmaneser III (r. – ), but almost nothing survives from the fi rst half of the th century. 4 e bulk of information comes from the heyday of empire between and . 4 e kings of this period again leB inscriptions with detailed accounts of their campaigns and depicted their victories on low-relief stone carvings all over the walls of their palaces. But in addition to such offi cial reports, which were meant to commemorate royal achievements for generations to come in the most favourable light possible, original documents from the imperial administra-tion as well as day-to-day correspondence between offi cials at diff erent levels of the mili-tary hierarchy have come down to us. 4 ese include letters by the king himself as well as powerful magnates, provincial governors, and many army commanders of lesser rank.

By far the most impressive sources are the royal inscriptions and the palace reliefs. Taken together, they provide detailed information on soldiers, weapons, and all kinds of equipment. We can follow the Assyrian army on its marches and crossing rivers, and have a look at the soldiers in their camp. Most dramatic are the battles, sieges, and, last but not least, the merciless pursuit of the fl eeing enemy. Together these sources con-struct an extremely one-sided picture, showing the Assyrian monarchs as they wanted to be seen by future generations. At the very heart of the ideological message is the tale of the irresistible, ever-victorious, heroic, and completely reckless king (Figures .a, .b). As an example, take the following part of a report on a battle given by an inscrip-tion of Sennacherib (r. – ). 4 e king is confronted by the numerous forces of a vast enemy coalition:

I raged like a lion. I put on the coat of armour; I placed upon my head the helmet, this ornament of fi ghting. I quickly mounted my excellent battle chariot, which smashes the foe, in the anger of my heart. I seized in my hands the mighty bow, which the god Aššur had given me; I grasped the life-cutting arrow. Against all the hosts of wicked enemies I raised my voice like a thunderstorm; I roared like the storm-god Adad. At the order of Aššur, the great lord, my lord, I charged like the onset of a hurricane at their fl anks and front. With the weapons of Aššur, my lord, and my furious onslaught, I made them waver, I forced them to fl ee. I mowed down the enemy host with arrows. (Borger : , ll. –; author’s translation)

Leading every single attack in person and from the front, omnipresent, throwing them-selves happily into the very midst of battle, rushing on, yelling, shooting, killing, in breathtaking races to glorious victories: that is how Assyrian kings wanted to be remem-bered. But the conspicuously small number of Assyrian kings actually killed in battle tells us that reality must have been diff erent. Danger freaks, such as the king sketched by Sennacherib’s inscription, would have died early and in rapid succession.


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A disillusioning glimpse of royal Assyrian behaviour in the real, mundane world is provided by a courtier’s or magnate’s admonition to Esarhaddon (r. – ):

Of course, the king, my lord, should not go to the midst of battle! Just as the kings, your ancestors, have done, take position on a hill, and let your magnates do the fi ghting! (Luukko and Van Buylaere : no. , rev. –; author’s translation)

(a)

(b)

. (a) 4 e heroic king in court dress, leading the charge. (b) Chariot crew in full armour, a rare and probably rather realistic depiction of the fi ghters and their equipment. Details of a stone relief from Assurnasirpal’s Northwest Palace at Kalhu, modern Nimrud, Iraq, 9th century . (Drawings by A.H. Layard (Or. Dr. III: S.W. VII), reproduced from Barnett and Falkner 1962: pl. CXVI)


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4 is message was written without propagandistic intent, for it was meant not for future generations but for the king’s eyes (or ears) only. Here we have the voice of reason. Because the Assyrian empire was focused to a large extent on the person of its monarch a king’s demise was always critical. Even if the question of succession had already been resolved, the king’s sudden death on the battlefi eld was likely to plunge the whole system into complete disarray. In their own inscriptions the kings portrayed themselves as fi ghting maniacs, bereB of any sense of danger, but to behave like that in real life would have been irresponsible madness which jeopardized the whole empire. Esarhaddon’s father, Sennacherib, was certainly among those ancestral kings mentioned by the mag-nate. So even if we cannot exclude the possibility that Sennacherib indeed raised his voice and roared in battle, as claimed by his inscriptions, we can defi nitely say that if he had done so he must have roared from a safe distance!

B —

Sennacherib’s inscription, as cited above, exemplifi es how combat was portrayed in order to leave a lasting impression of the king’s glory to future generations. For the composers of such heroic constructs, realism and accuracy were not amongst their top priorities. But what about the non-propagandistic sources, as for instance the messages that the kings received directly from their fi eld commanders? 4 e follow-ing extract of a report, sent to king Assurbanipal in about , gives some impres-sion of Assyrian small-scale warfare. Bel-ibni, the sender of the letter, was an Assyrian general based in the Sealand (the gulf coast of southern Iraq), whose task was to dev-astate the Elamite territory (modern southwest Iran) situated on the opposite shore of the Gulf:

When I sent (men) against the districts of Akbanu and Ale, on the opposite bank of the river Takkatap, they killed many soldiers there and took prisoners. 4 ey burned down Akbanu and Ale. But when Amurru-zera-ibni, Yadadanu, Bihayatu, the son of Mahiranu, sheikh of the Halat-people, as well as Laqe, son of Hallalla’ and their troops, bows altogether, fi gured out the route of the servants of the king, my lord, they took a position behind the river Nahal to ambush the servants of the king, my lord. 4 e servants of the king, my lord, therefore took another road and made use of a ford cubits upstream of them. Here they accomplished the crossing of the river until (all of them) had reached the other side. AB erwards they went straight for them. When the servants of the king, my lord, realized the great number of the soldiers downstream of them, and since they would have their hands full (once the fi ghting had begun), they killed all the prisoners they had taken. And they said to each other: ‘We are double-miles from the Sealand! If we have to die, let us die with an honourable reputation!’ Since the gods of the king, my lord, stood by his servants, they killed soldiers of them and hit or more (before) they (i.e., the enemy soldiers) fl ed. Among the


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servants of the king, my lord, only soldiers have been hit. ( Vaan : –, obv. –rev. ; author’s translation)

At fi rst glance, this seems to be a truly authentic report, but the heroic elements of the story must arouse our suspicion. Moreover, the report on the event, a skirmish won against all odds, was the result of at least two interventions, both of them made by subor-dinates who could hope to rise in their master’s favour if their success was noticed. 4 e returning soldiers certainly tried to impress their general; the general in turn seized the opportunity to please his king. It has always been a courtier’s most important skill to know how to exaggerate his merits to maximum eff ect without carrying it too far. As for the report just quoted, no independent source is available to help us to estimate Bel-ibni’s abilities as a courtier or the deviation of his report from the actual event.

Now, if the generals and soldiers exaggerated their victories, what about the king’s own advisors (Radner in this volume)? Can we assume we get reliable information from those men, at least, who helped the ruler to make his decisions? For an answer take the following example. When Esarhaddon made plans to invade the Mannean kingdom in western Iran, a possible intervention by Cimmerian warriors had to be taken into con-sideration. Assyrian diplomats had already reached an agreement with the Cimmerians, but these strange horse nomads, who seemed to come from the back of beyond, could not be trusted. A certain Bel-ušezib advised his king, Esarhaddon, how to avoid an ambush:

If the king has written to his forces: ‘Invade (the territory of) Mannea!’ not all the forces should invade; only the cavalry and the seasoned troops should invade! As for the Cimmerians who said: ‘The Manneans are at your mercy, we will keep out of this!’ perhaps this was a lie; they are barbarians to whom an oath sworn by god or a treaty means nothing! The chariots and baggage train should stay side by side in the pass, while the cavalry and the seasoned troops should invade and plunder the countryside of Mannea and come back and take posi-tion in the pass. If, after they have invaded and plundered once or two times, the Cimmerians have not advanced against them, the whole force can enter and throw itself against the cities of Mannea. (Parpola : no. , obv. —rev. ; author’s translation)

We can easily imagine the mountain pass and the less mobile army units waiting there, while detachments of cavalry and skirmishers swarm out in order to lure the enemy into a premature attack by which he would reveal both his position and his true intention. But how close was all this to the real situation in Mannea? 4 e advice seems plausible and we might think of Bel-ušezib as a military expert who knew the local terrain by heart. But in fact he was not even a member of the armed forces. His many letters to the king make it clear that he was a scholar working in Nineveh, whose advice was based on the interpretation of astrological omens! As he admits later on in the same letter, he did not have the faintest idea about the realities of the Mannean landscape:

I am writing to the king, my lord, without knowing the exit and entry of that coun-try. 4 e lord of (all) kings should ask an expert on the country, and the king should


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(then) write to his forces as he deems best. (Parpola : no. , rev. –; author’s translation)

Suddenly we fi nd the armchair strategist in full retreat! Perhaps he had realized that he might have jeopardized his own comfortable position at Esarhaddon’s court: if his advice proved right, others would step in aB erwards to share the success. However, if the scheme misfi red, the sole advocate of the idea was likely to fall out of favour with the king. So it was well advised to fi nd additional supporters for one’s own ideas, preferably people of sound competence on to whom responsibility could be shiB ed in case of trouble.

We do not know how the ‘expert on the country’ assessed Bel-ušezib’s advice, or even if his idea was discussed at all. 4 ere are certain hints that in a campaign against Mannea was broken off aB er initial success, and we know for sure that the kingdom of Mannea was not defeated in Esarhaddon’s reign. Bel-ušezib was just one out of a multi-tude of experts and advisors. He certainly tried to do his best but at least in this special case, his advice did not lead to victory.

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Similar problems aff ect the reliability of the pictorial evidence. For example, according to Sennacherib’s inscription quoted above, the king put on his helmet and his body armour before going to battle, but for the artists it was of primary importance to identify the king by his royal insignia. 4 erefore, in images, kings are always shown wearing their ceremonial gown, even in combat scenes. Another example is the way chariots are depicted. Probably for mere reasons of artistic economy, no more than one type of Assyrian chariot is ever shown on the reliefs made for any one king, whereas adminis-trative sources list the names of several chariot types (Dalley and Postgate : ; Postgate : ) . Of course, portraying a chariot was a rather ambitious task, so per-haps the artists were happy to have mastered the diffi culty of depicting just one type and reused their draB s whenever needed.

Further, there are qualitative as well as quantitative diff erences in the equipment of Assyrian and enemy soldiers as seen on the palace reliefs. While the Assyrians gener-ally appear well armed, the enemy warriors are shown badly equipped and unpro-tected, even unarmed or naked. 4 is is in clear contradiction to the evidence provided by the written sources, which tell us that the Assyrians and their enemies used the very same range of weapon types and armoury. At this point, we have to remember the intention behind the images as well as behind the offi cial texts. 4 ere was never any intention to convey a precise picture of real events. Instead they depict only the key episodes, which, taken together, tell us not what actually happened, but what should have happened. As a consequence, enemies had to be depicted as ill equipped and badly armed in order to avoid the slightest doubt about the outcome of the battle shown.


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Only people with no personal experience of war could be convinced of Assyria’s invincibility by the images of the hero king and the impressions of clean and happy warfare shown on the wall reliefs in the royal palaces. For those who actually took part in the campaigns and shared the risks and uncertainties of real warfare, these images were no more than expressions of their wishes and may be interpreted even as magical invocations of future victories.

Of course, the Assyrian troops and their leaders made extensive use of all possible religious means to guarantee supernatural support for their dangerous business. From the army’s departure until its return every stage of a campaign had to be accompanied by rituals and sacrifi ces to please the gods, and aB erwards the priests expected a substantial share in the loot carried home by the soldiers. Such giB s were expressions of gratitude as well as advance payments for future services. But for those fi ghting, divine support had to be even more concrete and practical. 4 e gods, in the form of standards showing their images, accompanied the soldier on the march; they rested with him in the same fi eld camp; and they fought side by side with him. To this purpose, each standard had its own chariot on which it could be mounted. In battle, the god stood in his vehicle and charged, visible to all (Pongratz-Leisten, Deller, and Bleibtreu : , ....) .

In addition, secret knowledge off ered ways to get signifi cant advantages over the enemy without physical combat. Scholars who specialized in a bewildering range of highly diversi-fi ed magical practices accompanied the king on his campaigns. Some could read specifi c signs warning of impending dangers, while others mastered the rites necessary to get answers from the gods on questions regarding matters such as the enemy’s next moves or the outcome of an ongoing operation (Starr ; Koch in this volume). And last but not least there were those who knew how to incite the gods’ wrath against the enemy, in order to bring upon him disease, despair, and disaster, even fi re raining down from the sky (Fuchs, : –).

Now, at the beginning of the st century, we might laugh at all of this apparently naïve mumbo jumbo. But even if the underlying assumptions were complete nonsense by our standards, these ideas and behaviours had massive repercussions in the real world. Certainly the rituals calmed fears, bolstered confi dence, and convinced the soldiers to fi ght for a just cause, while the practice of secret knowledge must have strengthened confi dence even in the most desperate situations. Without doubt, for a fi ghting force such morale boosts are at least as valuable as any superiority in numbers or technology. In those cases, therefore, the ideals shaped reality.

T ‘ A’

From the end of the th century the Assyrian kings steadily increased the numerical strength of their forces and improved their equipment. By the second half of the th cen-tury the army’s strength was enough to deter all but the most powerful enemies and


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coalitions from risking a pitched battle against the Assyrian juggernaut. According to the language of royal propaganda, the invading ‘huge hosts of Aššur’ could now cover an enemy’s territory to its full extent, like ‘a swarm of locusts’ or ‘a fog’.

4 e Assyrian armed forces were not a national army in the modern sense. 4 e troops of the Assyrian heartland proper were always reinforced by additional forces from the outside, and when the empire grew in territory the proportion of provincial troops and armies of vassal kings increased accordingly. But not even the provinces of the extended empire could meet the insatiable need for soldiers. 4 erefore prisoners of war, even complete armies of defeated states, as well as various auxiliaries were incorporated (Dalley ) . As a result, the armed forces of Assyria became a rather colourful, multi-ethnic entity whose heterogeneity as a side eff ect helped the kings to maintain control over their forces. Separated by their diff erent backgrounds, the constituent parts of the army probably kept each other in check and competed for the king’s favour instead of forming an alliance against him. In the th century soldiers of almost a dozen diff erent ethnic backgrounds served in the palace guards. 4 e principle of divide and rule seems to have worked: so far as we know, no Assyrian king ever met the fate of so many Roman emperors and Abbasid caliphs, who ended up as mere puppets of their own armed forces (Fuchs : –) .

In fact, the ‘huge hosts of Aššur’ consisted of several armies, which diff ered consider-ably in size, structure, origin, and combat value. 4 e core was the ‘royal contingent’, which comprised the elite units led by members of the royal family. Each of the great cit-ies of the Assyrian heartland contributed an army unit and the same was expected of every powerful magnate and every province (Dalley and Postgate ) . Vassal kings commanded their respective armies, while the warriors sent by allied tribes formed small ethnic contingents of their own. As for the soldiers recruited within the empire, the relative proportions of conscripts and volunteers are unknown. Most soldiers prob-ably received a piece of land in return for their services, but there must have been some forms of payment in cash for mercenaries and for auxiliaries of nomadic origin. As in most armies, the main incentive to fi ght at all must have been the soldier’s share of the expected spoils of war. In this respect, however, the prospects were more than promis-ing, because the Assyrians were usually the winners. 4 e king was also expected to take care of those who had lost their health in his service. Sennacherib, for instance, was proud to call himself ‘the one who gives help and assistance to the cripples’ (Borger : , I –) .

An all-round central administration comparable to that of modern armies, painstakingly registering every aspect of military life down to the last bit of equipment, did not exist in the ancient Near East. Instead, every unit was to some extent an organism, each with resources of its own. For instance, an Assyrian governor was completely responsible for his province’s contingent. He was to provide equipment, food, housing, and payment, and was expected to keep his contingent at a certain numerical strength through recruitment. 4 e men prob-ably served on a rota: every year, a certain proportion of the troops, led by the governor in person, joined the fi eld army, while their comrades stayed behind under the command of the vice-governor to keep up public order and to defend the province if necessary.


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4 e ‘huge hosts of Aššur’ were far too heterogeneous to have a standardized structure. At least among the core troops such ranks as ‘commander of ten’ or ‘commander of fi B y’ suggest units of standardized strength. Moreover, contingents of foot soldiers appear frequently. 4 e written sources mention four diff erent armed forces, identifi ed by the Assyrian military jargon as ‘wheels’ (chariots), ‘horses’ (cavalry), ‘bearers of the bow’ (bowmen fi ghting on foot), and ‘bearers of shield and spear’ (spearmen fi ghting on foot). 4 e ideal composition of a substantial Assyrian force at the end of the th century is provided by an inscription of Sargon II (r. – ), who deployed in his endan-gered northwestern provinces ‘ wheels, horses, , bearers of the bow and , bearers of shield and spear’ (Fuchs : n. ) . Accordingly, the ideal com-position of an Assyrian army regarding chariots, cavalry, and infantry seems to have been ::, while among the foot soldiers the ratio between long-range fi ghters and close combat troops was :. A numerical strength of more than , men may seem extraordinary, but it has to be remembered that this force was a detachment only, albeit a very strong one. 4 e size of the main army must have been even more impressive, but for its overall strength no reliable numbers are available.

T : E

Surrounded by enemies on all sides, Assyria never had the privilege of being able to con-centrate on just one foe alone. Most of the time, the strike power necessary to guarantee success could only be achieved if the available forces were concentrated into one single army. As a consequence, within any given year Assyria’s armed forces could be present in no more than a single theatre of war. Before the beginning of each campaigning sea-son, the objective had therefore to be chosen wisely. Once the army was on the move, any attempt to redirect it to another region would have resulted in a lamentable waste of time. AB er northern Mesopotamia had been brought under fi rm control, the Assyrian kings engaged in several theatres of war, each with its own distinctive features.

To the north there was the kingdom of Urartu, Assyria’s main rival in Iran and Syria. 4 e Urartian army was no match for the Assyrian forces, and the Urartian kings were wise enough never to attack the Assyrian heartland directly. But their own mountainous realm was accessible only via diffi cult passes and they had studded their entire territory with numerous castles. 4 ese could not be taken by force and neither was it possible to starve them out, because the Assyrians always had to retreat before the onset of winter closed the high mountain passes with snow and ice.

To the west, in Syria and the Levant, numerous highly civilized kingdoms of moder-ate size and power were just the victims the Assyrians wished for. 4 e Syrian kings were rich but constantly at loggerheads and therefore unable to coordinate their well-equipped but small armies into joint defence for any substantial period of time. However, they had


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invested some of their riches in surrounding their cities with massive fortifi cations, and to reduce just one of them could take the Assyrians up to three years. Nevertheless it was in the west that the Assyrian military machine achieved its most lasting victories.

To the south of the empire stretched the endless wastelands of the Syrian and Arabian deserts. In these waterless ranges the army fulfi lled police duties in order to keep in check the nomads, who, from the Assyrian point of view, were nothing but thieves and bandits living in tents.

To the southeast, in modern-day southern Iraq, several holy cities—among them the prestigious city of Babylon itself—plus half a dozen Chaldaean tribal kingdoms and many dozens of Aramaean tribes together constituted the confusing political mess called Babylonia. 4 e rivalries between the various leaders of all these cities and tribal groups always ruined any eff ort at united defence. Moreover, their troops may have been numer-ous but were of inferior quality and easy to rout. But they never gave up completely and in each generation Babylonia had to be conquered anew. Even worse, their eastern neigh-bour, the powerful and well-organized kingdom of Elam (in modern southwest Iran) made a habit of supporting Babylonian war eff orts against Assyria. Once the sizeable Babylonian rabble was reinforced with professional Elamite troops such a combination could be a real challenge even to the battle-hardened Assyrian veterans. Taken together, Babylonia and Elam were the most troublesome of Assyria’s many opponents.

To the east, on the Iranian plateau, the Medes inhabited a vast territory. 4 ey com-prised numerous chiefdoms, almost every one of which seemed to specialize in horse- breeding. But extreme political fragmentation made them easy prey to Assyrian forays, even those carried out by forces of minor strength. Right up to the very last years of Assyria, absolutely no danger at all was to be expected in this area.

At greater distances, the mountain ranges of the Taurus were crossed in order to fi ght against several enemies in central Anatolia, while in the southwest the temporary con-quests of Egypt by Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (r. –c. ) marked peaks in Assyria’s prestige.

T : T

According to the fi ction propagated by their inscriptions, the Assyrian kings led their army to victory in every single year. Reality was somewhat diff erent, as at least some years can be identifi ed for almost every Assyrian ruler in which the army stayed at home. But even so, it was quite normal for Assyria to be at odds with several of her neighbours at the same time. Small-scale raiding along the common border of two bickering great powers was the normal state of aff airs, while large-scale warfare set in if one side achieved successes intolerable to the other or if one adversary, usually the Assyrian king, had an overwhelming advantage over his enemy and decided to get rid of him once and for all.


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As soon as the king had decided which of his enemies was to be attacked, he had to sum-mon his troops, who were distributed all over the empire between campaigns. Initially the army was formed near the capital. Later on, aB er the empire had grown in size, the troops could be ordered to assemble at a border fortress. As long as the army units moved from one province or vassal kingdom to the next, they made good progress, since all cities and fortresses of any importance functioned as supply depots and no time was lost foraging. Once outside home territory, however, the situation changed completely.

In stark contrast to their offi cial boasting of recklessness, the Assyrian rulers handled their army with great caution. 4 is is not surprising, aB er all: if your very existence depends on the only army you have, you had better think twice before taking unnecessary risks. On enemy territory, the Assyrians built fortifi ed camps at least at each stage of their advance, perhaps even for each night, but the sources are not clear on this point. While the bulk of the army was usually kept together as closely as possible, small detachments and raiding parties swarmed out, in search of food supplies as well as to observe the enemy’s movements.

Campaigns sometimes covered extreme distances. For instance, the Assyrian troops who sacked 4 ebes in Egypt in were operating km away from their capital city of Nineveh (Eph’al : ) . According to the descriptions the Assyrian kings commissioned, three, some-times four, campaign types can be distinguished: raids, conquests, sieges, and naval operations.

Raids

4 e army advanced deep into enemy territory, plundering, killing, and burning all along the way in order to destroy the enemy’s livelihood. Leaving their supply depots far behind, the troops had to live entirely from the land, so the advance proceeded with the highest possible speed in order to give the enemy no time to organize their defence or to secure their precious food stores, which were also desperately wanted by the invaders. 4 e attackers were always on the move; they could not aff ord to stay anywhere for any length of time. 4 erefore it was the open countryside which suff ered most; fortresses and cities could only be taken by surprise or had to be ignored completely. Shalmaneser III’s cam-paign to the Mediterranean in (Yamada : –) and Sargon II’s deep advance into Media in (Fuchs : –, –) are examples of such raids. Both opera-tions covered large distances—Sargon’s even reached the eastern fringes of the known world—and both caused considerable damage but they did not result in lasting gains.

Conquests

4 e king campaigned within a more limited area, usually not far from the nearest supply depot on the Assyrian border, with the intention of incorporating the attacked region into his empire. 4 e eff orts put into conquests were more intensive than those directed to raids, and successive campaigns could be necessary to complete the subjugation of the local population. Since rebellions were to be expected before the new territory became an


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integral part of the empire, local settlements, favourably situated on movement avenues—fords and mountain passes—were soon transformed into Assyrian strongholds. Between the campaigning seasons the garrisons of these fortresses were expected to hold in check any remaining enemies and to gather stores of food, oil, wine, and fodder from the sur-rounding countryside. An example that can be followed in detail is the conquest of Zamua, a rather small stretch of land of modest wealth in the mountains of modern Iraqi Kurdistan. Adad-nerari II (r. – ) and Tukulti-Ninurta II (r. – ) made some eff orts in this direction, building a powerful fortress in the midst of Zamua. Even so, it took Assurnasirpal II (r. – ) two campaigns in , one in , and probably an additional one in the very last years of his reign, as well as the construction of a second fortress, to complete the conquest of Zamua (Liverani : –) . Military operations always revolved around the same few clusters of settlements, which had to be conquered time and again until the surviving inhabitants gave in at last.

Sieges

Of all military operations, the most ambitious task by far was to besiege a large and well-defended city, whose inhabitants were ready to endure the hardships of war. Accordingly, large-scale sieges were regarded only as a last resort and avoided whenever possible. 4 e reasons are obvious: any direct assault against city walls resulted in heavy losses so, in most cases, there was no alternative but to starve the defenders out. As a result, an army con-ducting a siege operation had to settle down in one single place for a prolonged period of time. 4 e increased logistical burden and the crowded living conditions within the besieg-ers’ camp oB en combined to make hunger and disease the defender’s most fearsome allies. In , for instance, Sennacherib was forced to liB the siege of Jerusalem because of the outbreak of an epidemic among his soldiers. As a solution to these problems, the Assyrians withdrew the army as soon as possible and leB behind no more than a small force, which could be supplied with ease. 4 ese troops were distributed over siege castles built around the beleaguered city by the army prior to its withdrawal. Based in these fortifi cations, the detached force continued to harass the defenders and denied them the use of the sur-rounding countryside until they were ready to surrender (Fuchs : ) .

Naval operations

As a mere land power, Assyria had no navy at all. Whenever the need arose to fi ght at sea, the Assyrians had to rely on the fl eets of their seafaring vassal kingdoms along the Mediterranean coast. When Sennacherib planned a surprise attack via the Persian Gulf against the coast of Elam, his transport fl eet was built by Phoenician shipbuilders and manned by Phoenician sailors. 4 e Assyrian king himself never set foot in his ships and when the fl eet set sail for the Elamite coast he stayed behind and watched this spectacle from the safety of the shore (Frahm : ) .


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M S II

Great signifi cance was attached to military intelligence as a prerequisite for victory. We know, for instance, that when Sennacherib was still crown prince he evaluated intelli-gence reports coming in from the northern frontiers and summarized them for his father, Sargon II. 4 e Assyrians maintained an effi cient spy system and on campaign their recon-naissance usually seems to have been ahead of the enemy’s (Dubovský ) . 4 is lead in intelligence gathering was the basis for outwitting the enemy by deception. Its impor-tance is evident from the extremely successful operations carried out by Sargon II in . He had been at war with the Urartian king Rusa I almost since he had come to power over ten years earlier, but had seen no signifi cant success. In , however, Sargon twice man-aged to lull his enemy into a false sense of security, and the resulting victories decided the century-old rivalry between the two empires once and for all in Assyria’s favour.

4 e campaign of took place in the mountainous regions of northwestern Iran, where both sides were trying to expand their spheres of infl uence. Urartian territory had been attacked from this direction the year before, so when the Assyrian army appeared on the scene again the Urartian king was expecting a second Assyrian inva-sion and had his own troops ready. But then the Assyrian marching columns surpris-ingly changed direction and took a road leading to the lands of the Medes. 4 e Assyrian king, so it seemed, had chosen another victim, and for this year at least, Urartu would be spared (Mayer : ll. –).

But as soon as Sargon was sure that the Urartian scouts had lost contact, he changed direction again and headed back towards Urartu. An extended detour via remote paths helped to conceal the secret approach, so when the Assyrian army fi nally reached enemy territory the Urartians were taken completely by surprise. Rusa now hastened to reas-semble his army, which he seems to have disbanded in the wake of the false all-clear. While the Urartian reconnaissance was failing to gather precise information on the whereabouts of the invaders, the Assyrian scouts had located the exact rallying point of the Urartians and found out that their army was not yet ready for action. Without hesita-tion Sargon took his chance, rushed forward with his troops, and fell upon his enemy, who was yet to reorganize his troops. Taken by surprise again, the Urartian forces suf-fered a crushing defeat (Mayer : ll.–).

4 e Assyrians followed up the destruction of the enemy’s fi eld forces with an extended and devastating raid straight through Urartian territories around Lake Urmia. 4 e destruc-tion of the Urartian army had leB them undefended, but now the highly effi cient Urartian warning system proved its worth. Wherever the Assyrian raiders appeared the inhabitants had already been evacuated, together with their movable possessions (Mayer : ll. –). Accordingly the amount of booty taken was smaller than expected, which was frustrating for Sargon because the prospect of extensive looting was necessary to keep his soldiers happy. Fortunately he found an opportunity to comply with his men’s wishes. Not far from the return


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route, the ruler of the small kingdom of Musasir, situated between Assyria and Urartu, was trying to maintain good relations with both his powerful neighbours. Consequently both suspected him of treason. Finding a reason for sacking the city was no problem (Mayer : ll. –), but if the king of Musasir realized Sargon’s intention in time, the inhabitants would fl ee as the Urartians had done and the Assyrians would fi nd nothing but empty houses. So once again, the hunter had to creep up on his prey.

AB er they had leB behind the Urartian territory, the ‘huge hosts of Aššur’ used the main road to return home. Any observers sent by the king of Musasir could see endless marching columns of chariots, horsemen, carts, and foot soldiers thudding back to Assyria. Occupied by this reassuring sight, no one noticed the detachment of selected troops, led by Sargon himself, which was secretly approaching the city of Musasir via diffi cult and rarely used mountain paths. Again the surprise was complete: the city was taken without resistance and all the treasures of her palace and her famous temple fell into Assyrian hands (Mayer : ll. –). In every respect, the campaign had devel-oped into a stunning success.

W

For the whole period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the bow was by far the most prestigious weapon. An Assyrian king conquered foreign lands not with his sword or his spear, but with his ‘mighty bow’. 4 e bow was the weapon of the chariot fi ghter, it was used on horse-back and the bulk of the foot soldiers were bowmen too. Slingers also fought at long range, but they are rarely mentioned. Javelins were in use by less developed people only, such as Nubian warriors and some inhabitants of the Zagros mountains to the east of Assyria.

4 e melee weapons—single-handed spears, short swords, daggers, and maces—all allowed the use of the shield, the most common defence weapon, which appears in a great variety of sizes and shapes. 4 e Assyrians never invented heavier, two-handed melee weapons; even their maces lacked the spikes necessary to puncture armour plates. Hence it seems likely that body armour was rarely encountered. Helmets of diff erent shapes existed, but most soldiers probably had to do without them. 4 e most expensive lamellar cuirasses consisted of bronze or iron rectangular scales attached to a leather underjacket. 4 ese must have been worn only by the chariot troops and perhaps a few selected cavalry and infantry units.

4 e Assyrian military establishment was technologically rather conservative (Zutterman ) . Traditional, well-known equipment was steadily improved, but dur-ing years of constant warfare not a single new weapon was invented. Likewise, new ideas and concepts developed by others were adapted only hesitantly. 4 e Assyrians had no lead over their enemies in the use of iron weapons. A horseman armed with shield and helmet is depicted in the palace of an upper Mesopotamian Aramaean petty king already in about , whereas in Assyrian sources cavalry troops are neither men-tioned nor depicted before the th century.


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4 e most prestigious piece of equipment was the chariot, a two-wheeled vehicle drawn by two or three horses in the th century, and later by four horses. 4 e minimum crew consisted of an archer, who was the commander and sometimes even the owner of the chariot, and the driver. Up to the th century, the chariots’ cab provided no protec-tion against incoming missiles. In battle the crew as well as the horses were clad in armour. 4 e crew members’ armour covered the whole body down to the ankles and must have been extremely cumbersome, especially as military operations usually took place in the searing heat of the Middle Eastern summer. But the armour’s protective strength considerably lowered the risk of getting wounded or killed, which mitigated all such inconveniences. For further protection, the crew was augmented by a shield bearer, who functioned as ‘intelligent armour’. During the th century the chariot’s size was increased and it was now drawn by four horses. Successive enlargements of the wheels, to greater than human height in the th century, improved the vehicle’s ability to move in diffi cult terrain. 4 e ‘intelligent armour’ was extended by adding a second shield bearer to the team. 4 e men replaced their long armoured shirts with shorter and more comfortable ones that reached only to the waist because the front and side screens of the cab were now strong enough to protect their lower bodies. By this very late stage of its development the chariot resembled to some extent a modern tank.

4 e new design enhanced the chariot’s suitability for cross-country driving and defence against missiles, but no attempt was made to increase its off ensive abilities: long-range strike power was still provided by a single archer. 4 e chariot was now more expensive than ever and the price of just one vehicle must have been suffi cient to equip dozens of bowmen fi ghting on foot instead. 4 e Assyrian decision to maintain a force of at least hundreds of these costly weapons is a clear indication that the chariot must have been much more than a movable platform for a bowman. In fact, it should be seen as a weapon system in its own right: its huge, threatening appearance, the arrows shot by the archer, the speed of its approach, and its apparent invulnerability must have combined to shake the morale of an already wavering enemy.

Moreover, the chariot’s improvements tell us something about contemporary infantry troops and their ways of fi ghting. Designed to survive the approach to the enemy lines under heavy defensive shooting, the chariot was perfectly suited to disperse enemy units that mainly consisted of bowmen, who were dangerous when fi ghting from a distance but helpless when caught in the melee. On the other hand, the whole concept of the Assyrian chariot was utterly useless against a Greek style phalanx of well-armoured spearmen fi ght-ing in close ranks. To approach such a foe the elaborate protection provided by the chariot was unnecessary, but at close range the vehicle and its crew would be in serious trouble. So even if the written sources provide no hints about the exact formation of the foot soldiers ‘carrying spear and shield’ in combat, the very existence of the Assyrian chariot and its con-tinued improvements seem to exclude battle tactics comparable to those practised by the Greek hoplites in the th and th centuries . In the Near East during the Neo-Assyrian period, spearmen seem to have been of secondary importance. In battle they may have ful-fi lled a somewhat static, mainly defensive role. In scenes showing siege warfare they can be seen protecting archers with their shields, which hints at rather loose formations.


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4 e specialization of the chariot—its reduction to the single task of attacking under heavy barrages of arrows and stones—was due to the development of cavalry troops, which relieved it from former tasks requiring higher speed and mobility, such as reconnaissance and foraging. 4 e th century was the experimental stage of the Assyrian cavalry, when its origins in the chariotry were still clearly visible. Two horsemen fought closely, side by side, one of them holding the reigns of both horses in order to allow the other one to use his bow with both hands. 4 is was the minimum chariot crew of driver and archer, who had leB their vehicle behind to ride on horseback instead. In the th century mounted archers learned to control their horses without additional help. Besides them we now fi nd other horseback troops fi ghting with spears. 4 ey did not hold their weapons underarm, as in the couched lance style known from the European high Middle Ages, but are depicted thrusting them downwards like the Norman knights on the Bayeux Tapestry. In the th century, reliefs from Assurbanipal’s palace show heavy cavalry with armour-clad horses. In spite of these developments, chariotry was never replaced by cavalry but they comple-mented each other, each concentrating on specifi c tasks of its own.

Assyrian civilization leB no military treatises or manuals. Since the overwhelming majority of the military establishment most probably could not read or write, even in alphabetic Aramaic, such manuals would have been of little use anyhow. Unfortunately the main aim of royal propaganda, which provides us with the bulk of information on Assyria’s ways of warfare, was to glorify the aB ermath of battles already won. 4 e pursuit of the defeated is celebrated, not combat itself. As a result, there are no pictures or reports on what happened in battle before victory had been achieved. For this reason, the course of not a single battle fought by the Assyrians can be reconstructed in any detail and we can only guess about the deployment of the diff erent armed forces and their eff ects in combat. Ancient Near Eastern battle tactics may have been similar to those the English used to great success in several battles of the Hundred Years War and in the Wars of the Roses: a battle certainly began with hails of arrows exchanged by the masses of foot arch-ers on both sides, who sent their missiles into the enemy formations in order to soB en up their defences. At a certain point—perhaps when the enemy lines could be seen to waver or aB er some units had been already disrupted or forced to retreat by the relent-less shooting—the chariots were sent in. 4 eir charge decided the battle, putting the enemy to fl ight at last. 4 e cavalry might have supported the chariots and the swiB horsemen were certainly put to deadly eff ect when they hunted down the fl eeing enemy. 4 e ultimate, if rarely accomplished goal in every battle was not just to beat the enemy forces but to annihilate them completely.

W

4 e considerable diffi culties in capturing a well-defended city or fortress were due to the low technological standards of the time, which gave a clear advantage to the defender. 4 e Assyrians used the most advanced techniques then known but they had by then


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already been in use for more than a thousand years. What is true for military technology in general goes for siege machinery too: the Assyrians invented no new principles or pieces of equipment. If possible, the Assyrians preferred to take cities by means of peace-ful negotiations, by intimidation, or through ruse and treason. 4 ey tried to catch the defenders by surprise or to exploit disagreements among them. Only if all these ‘cheaper’ ways failed was the costly procedure of a siege proper to be ventured.

4 e main problem was the lack of any kind of artillery whatsoever, which could have destroyed fortress walls from a safe distance. Accordingly, nearly all siege activities had to take place within range of the defender’s bowmen, and any direct approach required time-consuming preparations. Several methods were at the attacker’s disposal: siege towers and siege mounds provided elevated positions for bowmen, allowing them to combat the defenders on the ramparts more eff ectively, thereby covering the approach to the fortifi cations on the ground. 4 e walls could then either be leB intact and sur-mounted by ladders, or they had to be breached. Breaching could be accomplished either by battering rams, protected by wheeled roofs against enemy missiles, or by use of tunnels and undermining (Figures .a, .b). A third but rarely used method was to dam up a huge reservoir of water, which was released in one big rush in order to wash away parts of the fortifi cations. In any case the fi nal assault must have been a most bloody aff air: coming to grips with a resolute defender via ladders could prove suicidal and the attempt to capture a breach would certainly result in a desperate melee. And aB erwards, the fi ghting could well continue within the crooked and narrow streets so typical of ancient Near Eastern cities (Fuchs : – ; Eph’al ) .

However, the preconditions of such an assault were oB en not met at all. Mining required suitable soil conditions; siege towers, siege mounds, and battering rams were useful only if at least one part of the fortress was accessible via level terrain, and the chances of using water in the manner described above were even smaller. In most cases, there was no choice but to blockade the fortress until the defenders ran out of supplies. Some places, however, such as the Urartian mountain fortresses or the island cities of the Phoenician coast, were inaccessible as well as immune to blockade—they were impregnable in every respect.

T —A’

Wars are terrible aff airs and have always been, but in the ancient Near East the concept of war crimes as we now understand them was completely unknown. Moreover, people were convinced that their gods legitimized and approved the king’s rule and his policies. Accordingly, the king’s wars were wars of justice. Fighting against his gods’ enemies, he was entitled to punish and mistreat them as criminals and sinners with unrestrained brutality. 4 e Assyrian kings openly boasted of their atrocities and made a show of them. Collecting the severed heads of enemy soldiers killed in battle was a gruesome but yet comparatively harmless habit (Figure . ) . Far worse, the soldiers also cut off the noses,


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. (a) Armoured battering ram at work, with bowmen on a siege tower in the background: detail from panel (top register) in the throne room (Room B) of Assurnasirpal II’s Northwest Palace at Kalhu, modern Nimrud, Iraq, th century (British Museum, ME ). While the interest in accurately representing technical details is obvious in this instance, the king is shown in an idealized way, without any armour. (Photo by Karen Radner. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum) (b) An awkward depiction of another battering ram: detail of the top register of bronze band IX of Shalmaneser III’s Balawat Gates, ancient Dur-Imgur-Enlil, Iraq (British Museum). In reality this weapon was probably similar to the one depicted in (a) above, but here it resembles a bloated crocodile on wheels: it seems as if the artist never saw or understood the workings of the device. (Reproduced from King : pl. L)

(a)

(b)


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lips, ears, hands, and feet of their victims when still alive, or they blinded, burned or beheaded them. 4 e fate of captured rebels was especially harsh. 4 ey were paraded through the streets of several Assyrian cities and exhibited under humiliating conditions before they were impaled, disembowelled or skinned alive in public—the skins to be dis-played on the city walls. Such atrocities were not restricted to the treatment of enemies alone. 4 e Assyrians used the same methods to enforce discipline and obedience among their own troops, as the following order sent to a cavalry commander shows:

4 is is a royal order of great emergency! Assemble the commanders and the horse-men of your cavalry unit immediately! Whoever is late will be impaled in the middle of his own house and his sons and his daughters too will be slaughtered, which will then be the fault of his own! Don’t delay! Drop everything and come straight away! (Parpola : no. , obv. –rev. ; author’s translation)

. Assyrian soldiers celebrating victory, dancing with severed enemy heads and wear-ing lion costumes: detail of a stone relief from Assurnasirpal II’s Northwest Palace at Kalhu, modern Nimrud, Iraq (British Museum, ME ). (Photo by E. Robson. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.


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At this point we might argue that the crimes and cruelties committed by the Assyrians were surpassed by later epochs of human history in every respect. And we might add that at least racism, religious persecution, and genocide were phenomena unknown to the Assyrians, but such friendly remarks are not enough to lighten the dark side of Assyrian warfare and power politics, which are revealed by the Assyrian sources with blunt naivety. To the countless victims of Assyrian expansionism these niceties would have been no consolation at all.

C

4 e Assyrian army, which had been developing since the end of the th century, was never beaten. It suff ered temporary setbacks; it had to be used with caution; there were clear limits when fi ghting in diffi cult terrain; sieges were always a problem; and some-times Assyria’s only force was faced with too many diff erent theatres of war at once. But of all the numerous and very diff erent foes it encountered over the centuries not a single one ever managed to infl ict a substantial defeat on her. In the end, the ‘huge hosts of Aššur’ met their doom fi ghting against themselves in the protracted power struggles fol-lowing the demise of Assurbanipal in (probably) . Already in , when the up and coming Medes joined the Babylonian rebels, the Assyrian heartland was defended by a mere shadow of what had been the world’s most formidable war machine for more than three centuries.

F

An exhaustive and satisfactory study on the Assyrian ways of warfare is not yet available. Insights into the Assyrian army of the late th century are provided by Dalley ( ) as well as by Dalley and Postgate ( ) . For a provincial contingent and the role of chariotry and cavalry see Postgate ( ) . Several aspects of campaigning are discussed by Eph’al ( ) . Assyrian siege warfare is examined by Eph’al ( ) . For Assyrian archery see Zutterman ( ) .

R

Barnett, R.D. and Falkner, M. . ! e Sculptures of Assur-nasir-apli II (– ..), Tiglath-pileser III (– ..) and Esarhaddon (– ..) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud. London: Trustees of the British Museum.

Borger, R. . Babylonisch-assyrische Lesestücke I: Die Texte in Umschri- . nd edn. Rome: Pontifi cio Istituto Biblico.

Dalley, S. . ‘Foreign chariotry and cavalry in the armies of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II’, Iraq , –.


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Dalley S. and Postgate, J.N. . ! e Tablets from Fort Shalmaneser (Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud ). London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

Dubovský, P. . Hezekiah and the Assyrian Spies: Reconstruction of the Neo-Assyrian Intelligence Services and its Signifi cance for Kings – (Biblica et Orientalia ). Rome: Pontifi cio Istituto Biblico.

Eph’al, I. . ‘On warfare and military control in the ancient Near Eastern empires: a research outline’ in H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld (eds.) History, Historiography and Interpretation: Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, pp. –.

——— . ! e City Besieged: Siege and its Manifestations in the Ancient Near East (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East ), Boston and Leiden: Brill.

Frahm, E. . Einleitung in die Sanherib-Inschri- en (Archiv für Orientforschung BeiheB ). Vienna: Institut für Orientalistik der Universität.

Fuchs, A. . Die Inschri- en Sargons II. aus Khorsabad. Göttingen: Cuvillier. ——— . ‘War das Neuassyrische Reich ein Militärstaat?’ in B. Meißner et al. (eds.), Krieg,

Gesellscha- , Institutionen: Beiträge zu einer vergleichenden Kriegsgeschichte. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, pp. –.

——— . ‘Über den Wert von Befestigungsanlagen’, Zeitschri- für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie , –.

——— . ‘Gyges, Assurbanipal und Dugdammē/Lygdamis: Absurde Kontakte zwischen Anatolien und Ninive’ in R. Rollinger, B. GuB er, M. Lang, and I. Madreiter (eds.) Interkulturalität in der Alten Welt: Vorderasien, Hellas, Ägypten und die vielfältigen Ebenen des Koutaktes (Philippika ). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. –.

King, L.W. . Bronze Reliefs from the Gates of Shalmaneser King of Assyria .. –. London: Trustees of the British Museum.

Liverani, M. . Studies on the Annals of Ashurnasirpal II : Topographical Analysis (Quaderni di Geografi a Storica ). Rome: Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell’Antichità.

Luukko, M. and Van Buylaere, G. . ! e Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon (State Archives of Assyria ). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press; online at http://oracc.org/saa/ .

Mayer, W. . ‘Sargons Feldzug gegen Urartu— v. Chr.: Text und Übersetzung’, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orientgesellscha- , –.

Parpola, S. . ! e Correspondence of Sargon II, Part (State Archives of Assyria ). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press; online at http://oracc.org/saa/ .

—— . Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (State Archives of Assyria ). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press; online at http://oracc.org/saa/ .

Pongratz-Leisten, B. , Deller, K. , and Bleibtreu, E. . ‘Götterstreitwagen und Götter-standarten: Götter auf dem Feldzug und ihr Kult im Feldlager’, Baghdader Mitteilungen , –.

Postgate, J.N. . ‘4 e Assyrian army in Zamua’, Iraq , –. Starr, I. . Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria (State Archives

of Assyria ). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press; online at http://oracc.org/saa/ . Vaan, J.M.C.T. de. . ‘Ich bin eine Schwertklinge des Königs’: Die Sprache des Bēl-ibni (Alter

Orient und Altes Testament ). Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins.


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Yamada, S. (). ! e Construction of the Assyrian Empire: a Historical Study of the Inscriptions of Shalmanesar III (- ..) Relating to his Campaigns to the West (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East ). Leiden: Brill.

Zutterman, C. . ‘4 e bow in the ancient Near East, a re-evaluation of archery from the late nd millennium to the end of the Achaemenid empire’, Iranica Antiqua , –.


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oup uncorrected proof – revises, 05/27/11, spi

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